Only a Game
by cherryjamontoast
Summary: Before she was ever Champion, Hawke was but a girl who learned the hard way that love was a luxury mage girls couldn't afford.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Aw snap! I don't own Dragon Age. Does that surprise you?

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><p>Stuck dumb, young Melaina Hawke took in the sight of her home, set aflame by those who were once friends of her family, turned angered mob by a single accusation. The shadows of the trees made her and her family blend into night, nameless inhabitants of the Korcari Wilds. A tear slid down her cheek as the roof, thatched by the hands of her father, fell in on itself. The horse and sheep in the barn were making ungodly noises as that, too, went up in flames. This was the first home she could recall. They had moved from location to location when she and the twins were young, but this farm hold on the edges of a little blot of a town near the Wilds held many memories.<p>

A calloused hand rested on her shoulder, in an attempt to comfort but young Hawke angrily shrugged it off. She glared into the face of her father, and for once, she was glad the darkness hid his countenance for she could not bear the sight of him.

"We cannot stop here." Malcolm warned bluntly. Safety was first and foremost in his mind; he would deal with his eldest's wrath once she and the entire family were out of harm's way. It was a several day trek to the ruins of Ostagar by road, and about a week longer if by route of the forest. He only hoped that the forest's reputation would keep the townsfolk out of their way. With luck, by the time competent templars got wind of the incident, their trail would be cold.

"No, but I can." Melaina replied defiantly, wiping stubbornly at her tears. Her mother's gentle touch on her arm was accepted by the young mage.

"Darling," Leandra began quietly, sympathetically, her hand trapping Melaina's hand to her cheek, "There is nothing left back there for you or any of us."

The gesture somewhat sated the would-be Champion's anger but not before she got one more shot in. "This didn't have to happen." Melaina shook her head bitterly, "Father's actions cost us this."

"Yes, we lost everything because it was _Father _who dallied with that local boy." Carver interjected. His eye roll could not be seen for the shadows but it was certainly noted in his tone.

His thirteen year old twin bristled at these words. She had stayed close to her mother's skirts as they fled the farm hold. When they had stopped, Bethany had breathlessly slumped against an obliging tree, clinging to the small bundle of salvaged family keepsakes and other supplies as if they were her lifeline. "You were the one goading her…" She pointed out, hugging the bundle tighter.

"Enough!" Malcolm snapped irritably to cease his children's bickering. He then turned to his eldest and took her chin in his hands to get her full attention. Melaina tried to wriggle out of her father's grasp, but he held firm. "If it pleased you and only you, Melaina Hawke, you could stop here. But it doesn't. And believe me, if it were ever my intention to be caught by templars, then I'd hand us over on a silver platter… But seeing as how we are fresh out of needless, frilly, flatware, we are moving on to Ostagar even if I have to drag you every step of the way and push you through the fortress' threshold!"

The former circle mage let go of his daughter and without a single word began to lead the way further into the forest and away from the ashes of their home. Leandra followed behind her husband, her backwards glance at another place that was almost home did not go unnoticed. Carver fell in next, his reproachful glare at his big sister met with a challenging one.

Bethany slid beside her Melaina and placed a comforting arm around her sister as she slid the pack on her shoulder in the same gesture. Quietly she led Hawke along behind the rest of their family. At length, when the shouts of the mob and crackling of their old home could not be heard anymore Bethany spoke.

"Sometimes heartache is a blessing. Not many Witches of the Wilds have beaus." Bethany offered.

Hawke gave a halfhearted smile at the mention of her childhood ambition. She was ten when she had announced that she intended to become a Witch of the Wilds and spirit off small children. Melaina had told her parents with the conviction of a child that she would specialize in taking annoying little brothers and would be considered in turn, a patron to long suffering big sisters everywhere. That was two years before they had relocated to the small town near the Wilds. How far off that time felt….

Melaina gave a half-hearted smile in return and pulling her cloak closer to her, walked ahead. Bethany was too sweet to say what she was thinking but Melaina's baby sister was right. Mages were not meant to be loved… Much like oil and water, love and the gift of magic didn't mix.

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><p><strong>AN: I hope you liked chapter 1! I will try to update as often as I can. Young Hawke and Malcolm especially have caught my imagination from the very beginning. In game, I loved how people were connected. So I've taken these thoughts and am running with them. Next chapter will flash back several months before and we will see a particular connection that will (hopefully) make fangirls happy. Any support given is greatly appreciated and I am always open for ideas and thoughts on the story. **


	2. Chapter 2

***several months earlier***

Hawke fixed her most charming smile as she stroked the pile of fleece she had set on the counter minutes before. "It's good fleece, Lars." She told the owner of the town's one and only general store.

The old man regarded the fleece, laid out on his counter. Then he cocked his head and spat behind him. Hawke's disgust was visible only by a raised, arched, eyebrow; she made sure her charming smile remained constant. "And tell me, Melaina Hawke, what makes your fleece different from the fleece brought into me by all of the other farmers near town's edge?"

She had to make this deal. They needed the money to buy supplies for the planting season. But bartering with Lars was like banging one's head against a wall. Malcolm had left for the Bannorn, with what profit the family had left from the previous year and the hope of purchasing a new plow horse at one of the many spring festivals held there. Which meant that the honor of banging one's head against the wall fell to Malcolm's eldest.

"Why just look at it!" Hawke said lightly flipping her brunette ponytail over her left shoulder as if to dismiss any doubt towards the quality of the fleece. "So clean you're more like to eat off it than wear it."

"My customers seldom eat off the fleece they buy from me store." Lars returned flatly.

For a small moment, Melaina's charming grin faltered. Her father had made this look so easy! Lars's customers indeed! Out of the 75 families living in the small village they _"seldom"_ eat off of their fleece. The loony! She had half a mind to curse him and stalk away. However, failure was not an option. So Hawke squared her shoulders and flashed Lars a sweet grin.

"This yarn, though." Hawke continued her pitch, taking out several hanks of woolen yarn. "Feel it, Lars! So soft you'd swear it was spun silk _and_ as a matter of fact, it was spun painstakingly by the artful hands of a noblewoman from the Free Marches. "

Lars idly regarded her with a hand resting on his chin. "Your mum, then?" He asked at length.

'Sod it all!' Melaina mentally cursed, careful not to let her ire show in her face. Behind her, Bethany-mere days into her thirteenth year, was contentedly looking at hair ribbons and seemed to be completely oblivious to the goings on by the counter. That was just as well, Hawke decided, Bethany didn't need to see her sister play hardball with the old codger.

Letting out a strangled cry, Melaina reached across the counter to grasp the store owner's arm and positioned herself to let Lars see a bargaining chip that her father never possessed. "Please, ser!" Hawke whispered urgently, knowing by the shopkeeper's gaze she got his attention. "Please, my father is counting on me to sell this to you. He's never asked me to do something of such importance before and…I truly do not wish to disappoint…" She trailed off, biting her lip for added effect and adjusting her body so as to work it to her advantage.

"There, there now." Lars told Hawke's chest. "I'll give you five sovereigns and thirty silvers for the whole lot. Provided your mother's yarn is what you say it is."

"It's all that and more." Hawke promised softly as Olaf placed the coin on the counter, just as Bethany stalked up and gingerly placed one red and two blue ribbons on the surface. It was almost in the same gesture that Lars took away fifteen silver from the pile.

The old man noticed Hawke's incredulous look and leaned over to explain. "Them ribbons are imported so that'll be fifteen silver." He gave a bark of a laugh as Malcolm's eldest's face lost all of its applied sweetness. "Got 'em from Denerim." Lars explained.

Hawke sneered and reaching into a small pouch of her own slapped fifteen of her own silver on the counter. "Take it, then." She growled, the honey long gone from her voice as she took the full payment and the ribbons in one swift, angry, gesture and haughtily stalked out of the store with Bethany in her wake.

The sisters stepped out into the chill of the afternoon, pulling their cloaks a little closer. The mother, used to the temperate climate of the Marches would say with a long suffering sigh that Ferelden had but three seasons: winter, not winter and not quite winter. Despite the chill in the air, it was most normal for the country in the early spring. As the sisters stepped into the street; Bethany regarded her sister silently, watching the anger seep slowly out of her system.

The dusty road they stood on was the only one in town and it led only three places: into town, out of town to the Wilds and to the Chantry. Those who lived in town lived along the way from the entrance of town to the Chantry while others (at least ¼ of the families) lived outside the limits, working as farmers or trappers. The Chantry had but a single chanter, a reverend mother and an initiate. The two templars stationed in the town were increasingly senile, though pride kept them from retiring. It was the perfect place to stay for a family of apostates.

"You didn't mind paying for them did you?" Bethany wondered softly, oblivious to the extent her sister went through to barter with Lars.

Hawke's expression melted into one of fondness. She silently shook her head 'no' and affectionately, wrapped her arm around Bethany's shoulder as they walked. Bethany leaned into her sister's embrace and took the ribbons out to examine them in the crisp spring sunshine. "They are rather pretty, aren't they, Laney?" Bethany offered, using a nickname Melaina only allowed a select few to use.

Melaina turned to her sister with a wry and said lightly. "And expensive. Imported from Dererim? My dear sister, your tastes are rather sophisticated in your old age."

Bethany smirked and haughtily looked away from her sister with her nose jokingly high in the air as she tucked the precious ribbons into her little leather pouch that held the various trinkets of a thirteen year old girl. Once they were safely inside, Hawke snatched it out of her sister's hands and placed it on the loop of her belt while the fleece's profits went around her neck. "Lest you forget, _I_ bought the ribbons?" Melaina reminded, putting emphasis on the word "I". "There's no need to have you take the ribbons out on the way home only to lose them in the mud."

Melaina's sister's jaw dropped in indignation. "I do no such thing!" She protested.

Hawke raised an eyebrow in reply, her upper lip curling to make an odd expression. It was an expression their father would often employ and one (much to the chagrin of their mother) Melaina inherited. "So it _was _Carver, dressed as you, who lost Mother's new dwarven silver fork and spoon in the mud!" Hawke exclaimed sarcastically feigning shock and surprise. "How many times have I told you two? Switching places only works when your twin looks _exactly_ alike."

Bethany bristled with indignation. "I was seven! And I only ever dropped a purchase in the mud just that _once_."

Hawke threw back her head, laughing at the situation. "Aw, no worries, birthday sister!" She cooed in a babied tone. Bethany's cheeks flushed as a young man, closer to Melaina's age gave her a quick wink as he slowed his pace to step aside for the sisters to pass.

He was a handsome lad, swarthy skin, dark hair and a _very_ nice smile. Bethany's breath caught in her throat as she looked at him. She knew him by looks only, not by name. He was close to Melaina's age but Carver and Bethany didn't really associate with the older village children. The road got extremely narrow as it led to the outer lying farms and the Korcari Wilds so that only two could walk abreast. Even so, Melaina brushed into him as they passed. While she paid it and him no heed as she continued teasing, Bethany could not help but feel a quick little jealous pain.

"Nothing will make you terribly, terribly-HEY!" Melaina halted in her teasing, her hand on the vacant spot on her belt, and shouted at the young man who had turned and was sprinting off to the tree line on the forest.

Before Bethany could say anything or register what was happening, Melaina had taken off after him, profanities that would make their mother blush on Melaina's lips.

"Oh, Maker!" Bethany sighed before taking off after the thief and her sister.

He led them through the forest, placing logs, high sitting roots and low lying branches between them. However that did not deter Hawke who chased him persistently, fresh profanities and threats on her lips. She would not let him shake her and so the thief led them what felt like miles into the forest until at last the leaves seemed to choke out the sun. Finding one's footing was becoming a difficult thing and with the thief's mind so preoccupied on running, surely he wouldn't notice….

"This ends here!" Hawke whispered, holding out a hand slightly in front of her. The spell that she used was never taught to her, but Father had warned of how magic could do its own thing in an emotional novice mage. The effect of the tree root lifting from the ground and tripping the thief was subtle yet completely interesting for Melaina to behold.

And it did the trick. By the time the thief had stumbled, Melaina had caught up. Greeting him with a right hook to the face, he fell back down. Young Hawke pinned him to the forest floor with her knees straddling him on either side.

"And here I thought being caught would be the worst outcome. " The thief commented smoothly, Hawke's position on top of him not going unnoticed. "Perhaps I should try it more often, eh Melaina?"

Hawke scowled and ripped the leather pouch from him. She had barely exchanged words with him in the five years they had been in the town. Her breath ragged, she scowled at the lad and snarkily said, "If you intend on being a master thief, Daveth, then I suggest you start stealing _valuables_ and not…" She paused and extracted a blue hair ribbon from the pouch before continuing. "… trinkets from little girls."

**A/N: Yep. I have to say I am a stickler for details and I was pleasantly surprised to recall that the Hawkes were in Lothering for 7 years and Daveth was in Denerim for 6. I began thinking and seeing as how Hawke and family didn't stay in one place for long, it wouldn't be surprising or a big stretch if Hawke and Daveth were acquainted. Either way, I hope you enjoyed. Next chapter will be up soon. **


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